Confucius Peace Prize?

To smear and sabotage Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize, China has gone to the unthinkable extent. It threatens the Chinese living in Norway to stage protest against the award; and it creates a farce by staging an award called Confucius Peace Prize given to a six-year-old girl.

According to the South China Morning Post, the award committee refused to reveal the girl’s background at a chaotic press conference.

The brochure handed out at the press conference says Lien Chan, former Taiwanese president, was selected by internet users as the winner. Asked when and on what website the online voting was done, a professor from Beijing Normal University, who along with two professors forms the award committee, said they failed to carry out the voting because of “technical problems”. So how has the winner been selected?

And, you must be wondering why then the girl turns out to be the winner, not Lien Chan as mentioned in the brochure. No answer either. She stands in for Lien Chan – that is what we are told.

According to the award committee, which claims to be a non-profit organization, the Confucius Peace Prize, with the award of 100,000 yuan, aims to advance the “Chinese viewpoint of peace”. For the Chinese authority, it seems, our common values like human rights and peace, all denote differently for the Chinese. Or it claims to be.

When can China demonstrate not only its economic power, but also power of civilization its four thousand years of history has embedded in it?

I´m writing you because of my research project about “Public Diplomacy in Hong Kong”, which I am currently conducting at the chair of International Politics and Foreign Affairs at the University of Cologne.